On a warm summer morning in Oconee County, Georgia - about an
hour's drive east of Atlanta - traffic streamed along a once-rural
road, now heavily traveled and busy with gas stations, convenience
stores and subdivisions. Along one stretch of the road, men with
chain saws and a bulldozer had begun to clear a remaining patch
of woods, a fairly large area of hardwoods mixed with a few pines.
Many trees already had fallen and some had been pushed into rough
piles, leaving the red-dirt hillside looking raw and strangely
open.
On a branch of a tall scraggly pine still standing on the edge
of the road, sat a Barred Owl, in full daylight, while trucks and
cars and vans passed below it and the bulldozer rumbled and clouds
of red dust rose and hung in the air. The owl - rather stocky,
with brown, streaked plumage, a round head and dark round eyes
- didn't appear to be hurt, but it did appear disoriented by the
sudden destruction of the woods that may have been its home.
Ordinarily, a Barred Owl would have spent the day hidden in the
deep shade of the woods, and when it came out at night, it would
have moved with a predator's confident grace, on broad, silent
wings. It would have called in a voice that carried through the
dark woods - who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-ow-you-ow -
loud, distinctive and proud. Now, in the harshly open light of
day, the owl looked painfully vulnerable and out of place.
It happens every day, and the scene is a familiar one for all
of us who live in this area. Another patch of woods pushed down;
another road or subdivision or superstore taking its place - except
that we rarely see the displaced owl. Or the scattered songbirds,
woodpeckers, bobcats, beavers, salamanders, wildflowers, mushrooms
and myriad other wild animals and plants that depend on these woods
for a home.
The woodland culture that's being destroyed is largely invisible
to most of us who live here. We only see the loss of the trees,
and although we may regret that loss or even feel angry, we don't
really know what we're losing. Many, if not most of us, know less
about our own Southern woods than we know about the rainforests
of South America or the plains of Africa. And what we do not know
is a crucial factor contributing to the loss of these woods. If
we're not familiar with what's there, we're not likely to fight
very hard to protect it.
The Southern woods are all around us - not the somewhat protected
woods of national forests or parks or nature centers, but the ordinary
woods that spring up anywhere they're given half a chance. Like
unobtrusive background music, they're always there, but seldom
noticed - they spread across old farm fields, over acres and acres
of land once planted in cotton, in back yards, along rivers and
creeks, beyond pastures, beside highways. They set the mood, they
shape and color the landscape, they define our horizons. We take
them for granted and think of them as ordinary and common - but
we don't really know them. We generally don't think these woods
are likely to be especially interesting because they're not a wilderness,
they're far from pristine. We know they've been diminished from
centuries of human use and abuse, and may think they are, therefore,
less deserving of our interest or protection.
But the ordinary Southern woods all around us, though not wilderness,
are still wild. They still provide a rich habitat and a refuge
for wildlife. Right now, in the woods in Oconee County, you can
still hear the call of a barred owl, the incomparably beautiful
song of a wood thrush, the exotic chuckle of a yellow-billed cuckoo,
or the scream of a bobcat in the night. You can still see, if you're
patient and lucky, the bushy red tail of a fox, the nest of a red-shouldered
hawk, the filmy pink of a wild azalea, the burnished plumage and
fierce yellow eye of a green heron stalking dragonflies in a wetland.
These and many other fascinating wild animals and plants still
live in the ordinary Southern woods and go about their lives without
our notice, for the most part.
But if the woods they depend on continue to be cut down and replaced
by asphalt and streetlights and storefronts and lawns, it won't
be long at all before these things live only in the stories from
the past we tell our children's children.
Originally published as an op-ed piece in The Atlanta Constitution, April 10, 2001
Copyright © 2009 Sigrid Sanders| All Rights Reserved